While customers have long held certain bedrock expectations with respect to their financial institutions – from friendly service to the safety and security of their funds – today’s consumer almost certainly would also include technological convenience among those baseline standards. After all, like most of the rest of their lives, customers’ banking activities have migrated to online and mobile platforms, which means banks and credit unions need to be able to meet and satisfy those needs.

FEBRUARY 5, 2019A Year in the Life
By Mark Loehrke, Editor, Financial Managers Society

As it turns out, there was more to celebrate at FMS in 2018 than just our 70th anniversary.

The year just passed was also another great step forward for the association and its members, as illustrated by the impressive numbers outlined in our Look Back at 2018. From thought leadership and research content to a bevy of opportunities for professional development, 2018 was certainly one for the books.

FEBRUARY 4, 2019Looking Back at forward
By Hilary Collins, Specialist, Publications and Research, Financial Managers Society

While hard at work on the March-April issue of FMS forward, we couldn’t help but notice some developments of interest on several of the topics we covered in the January-February issue. Here’s some recommended related reading to hold you over until our next issue drops.

If you found To Lend or Not to Lend a compelling read, you may be interested in what Credit Union Student Choice is working on. The leading provider of higher education financing solutions for credit unions is partnering with FutureFuel to offer student loan repayment benefits that younger workers want.

If The Culture Conversation piqued your interest, here’s another read on how workplace dynamics can affect your bottom line. With employee expectations dramatically changing, organizations that choose to ignore rather than thoughtfully shape their corporate identity may have a lot to lose.

For fans of The Future is Female, a new executive coaching network devoted to women hopes to serve as an antidote to the “boys’ club” mentality in many industries. At the current rate, we’ll need two more centuries before women achieve gender parity in the workplace – here’s an organization that’s looking to speed up the rate of that change.

When we were putting together “The War on Deposits” cover story for the March-April 2018 issue of FMS forward, it became clear that concerns about deposit growth for community institutions would not be subsiding quickly. Almost a year later, when we took the pulse of our membership about top priorities in 2019, it remains a major challenge.

Read all about it in our latest Perspectives piece, “FMS Quick Poll: 2019 Priorities,” as we delve into the areas that your fellow members plan to focus on in the coming year. From technological issues to CECL implementation, your peers at institutions across the country shared their most pressing goals for 2019 – take a look to see how your goals measure up.

Amid strong economic growth, equity market volatility and the prospect of rising interest rates in the quarters ahead, what were more than 5,000 community institutions doing in their investment portfolios to face this economic confluence during the fourth quarter of 2018? Find out now in the latest edition of the Community Bank Investment Index(CBI Index) from PFM Asset Management LLC.

Some of the more notable items from the fourth-quarter report include:

•Portfolio yields trended higher during the period ending November 15, as yield to maturity rose to 3.36% – higher than both the third-quarter rate of 3.09% and the year-earlier rate of 2.45%

•Demonstrating evidence that community institutions are using their available dollars to help fund loan growth rather than investments, total dollars invested in held to maturity securities in bank portfolios fell for another quarter, this time by 13%

•Investments in Treasuries and commercial mortgage-backed securities continued to rise dramatically, climbing by 33% year over year, even as dollars in investment portfolios overall dropped by 7% for the same period

Dig into the above data and much more in the latest CBI newsletter, now available on the FMS Resources page.

Ring in the new year with the January-February issue of FMS forward! In this issue, we take a sweeping look at the biggest stories of 2019 straight from the mouths of experts and industry insiders and get the secrets of success from female executives. We also talk to Matthew Kelly about his new book, The Culture Solution, and chat with Thomas Vartanian about the new initiative he’s heading, the Financial Regulation & Technology Institute.

This issue is packed with actionable insights on what’s next for your institution and you personally. If you’re wondering whether municipal bonds still make sense for your institution’s investment portfolio, or whether your credit union should wade into student lending, we have answers.

One of the biggest concerns for institutions as they inch toward CECL’s effective date is exactly what data they’re going to need in order to comply with the new standard. The truth is that either too much data or too little can cause different problems for implementation. So what exactly do you need?

In his new FMS Perspectives piece, Data Needed to Comply with CECL, Toby Lawrence of Lawrence Advisory Services outlines exactly what data you need, and offers tips on how to segment and store it. You’ll still have to do the legwork – but not the guesswork.